I really hope Sugarloaf replaces their trail map when the West Mountain expansion goes in. The current map is so dense as to be basically unreadable, and the Brackett Basin section is wildly inaccurate in places.
I said, damn, I did not know Jean Marie Mayer died. He built the St. Bernard at Taos and also started the ski school, the best in the country, many think. I stayed there for a few nights a few years ago, and he was hosting dinner and serving tables at 82. A great personality, important person in the history of American skiing. Try to stay at the St. Bernard before they tear it down and put up something like the new Blake next door. It's pricey, but worth it. RIP to a giant.
As far as Liftopia, reminds me of the Warren Buffet quote: "You find out who was swimming naked when the tide goes out." How somebody could screw that up is beyond me. As you wrote, could have been a major brand in skiing, branching out from just tickets. Can't see anything like it coming back until capacity comes back to normal.
If the death of printed trail maps becomes universal and permanent I will be very disappointed. Not only are they more practical than a digital map on the hill, but I love pouring over them at the end of the day. I have always pictured doing that with my kids who are not quite old to ski, I never imagined the maps would go away. At least I have James Niehues' book.
Start by charging for them and see if that reduces the waste! (And yeah, I know it's not actually about the waste, that's just a lame cover for penny pinching).
The idea of states falling like dominoes from closures was certainly valid last March, primarily because the ski resorts were not prepared for Covid at all. However, now almost all of them have reservation systems in place. So even if millions of people from New York and Boston want to ski at Jiminy Peak for example, Jiminy will limit ticket sales to 2000 or whatever the max number is. no reservation, no skiing, and therefore no crises. same thing happened with East Coast beaches last summer. They weren't overwhelmed because they limited the number of people there by requiring reservations.
Good article about Liftopia. Evan Reece's model frustrated ski area operators since Liftopia started peddling their discount site. They were usually holding their nose while signing on with them, while Liftopia collecting double-digit percentages off sales through their site. They made a significant campaign on their demand model low pricing that forced resorts to up their walk-up rates. This tactic was a constant drumbeat at industry trade shows, with resorts signing on because companies that make ski area ticketing software, suck at e-commerce...and still do. Liftopia's best tactic was providing their platform for resorts, which was a brilliant move and a relatively cheap way to get a good online sales site at roughly only a 5% cut. The deal was you had to be on the Liftopia site, and resort pricing had to mirror the Liftopia site. All of this with fancy graphs on how much you were going to make...wooing the ski area marketing crowd but crushing daily yields.
Never blamed, Liftopia is just as guilty as Vail driving up walk-up ticket prices. Meanwhile, killing group business and ski clubs at the same time. Oh yeah, and buy through us cause if it rains you can get a full credit to come back another day. Their refund/credit policy was super liberal; it sucks when an experienced ski maven buys a Liftopia ticket for $29 gets a credit. Meanwhile, the family spending big cash has to ski in the freezing rain torturing everyone, and when they go home, they say, this sucks, and we'll go to Disney next time.
As much as we loved the easy online deals, good riddance Liftopia. Ski areas now will finally work to have a way to sell online through their creativity and start to manage pricing with better deals to suit the ski industry's overall sustainability. The deals will be back; ski area operators and marketers are pretty good at what they do...unless maybe they are stuck in Broomfield.
I really hope Sugarloaf replaces their trail map when the West Mountain expansion goes in. The current map is so dense as to be basically unreadable, and the Brackett Basin section is wildly inaccurate in places.
Hello Stuart, I sent you a LinkedIn connection request. A few business questions about Substack. Thanks.
Whoops, I deleted my post.
I said, damn, I did not know Jean Marie Mayer died. He built the St. Bernard at Taos and also started the ski school, the best in the country, many think. I stayed there for a few nights a few years ago, and he was hosting dinner and serving tables at 82. A great personality, important person in the history of American skiing. Try to stay at the St. Bernard before they tear it down and put up something like the new Blake next door. It's pricey, but worth it. RIP to a giant.
As far as Liftopia, reminds me of the Warren Buffet quote: "You find out who was swimming naked when the tide goes out." How somebody could screw that up is beyond me. As you wrote, could have been a major brand in skiing, branching out from just tickets. Can't see anything like it coming back until capacity comes back to normal.
If the death of printed trail maps becomes universal and permanent I will be very disappointed. Not only are they more practical than a digital map on the hill, but I love pouring over them at the end of the day. I have always pictured doing that with my kids who are not quite old to ski, I never imagined the maps would go away. At least I have James Niehues' book.
Start by charging for them and see if that reduces the waste! (And yeah, I know it's not actually about the waste, that's just a lame cover for penny pinching).
The idea of states falling like dominoes from closures was certainly valid last March, primarily because the ski resorts were not prepared for Covid at all. However, now almost all of them have reservation systems in place. So even if millions of people from New York and Boston want to ski at Jiminy Peak for example, Jiminy will limit ticket sales to 2000 or whatever the max number is. no reservation, no skiing, and therefore no crises. same thing happened with East Coast beaches last summer. They weren't overwhelmed because they limited the number of people there by requiring reservations.
Good article about Liftopia. Evan Reece's model frustrated ski area operators since Liftopia started peddling their discount site. They were usually holding their nose while signing on with them, while Liftopia collecting double-digit percentages off sales through their site. They made a significant campaign on their demand model low pricing that forced resorts to up their walk-up rates. This tactic was a constant drumbeat at industry trade shows, with resorts signing on because companies that make ski area ticketing software, suck at e-commerce...and still do. Liftopia's best tactic was providing their platform for resorts, which was a brilliant move and a relatively cheap way to get a good online sales site at roughly only a 5% cut. The deal was you had to be on the Liftopia site, and resort pricing had to mirror the Liftopia site. All of this with fancy graphs on how much you were going to make...wooing the ski area marketing crowd but crushing daily yields.
Never blamed, Liftopia is just as guilty as Vail driving up walk-up ticket prices. Meanwhile, killing group business and ski clubs at the same time. Oh yeah, and buy through us cause if it rains you can get a full credit to come back another day. Their refund/credit policy was super liberal; it sucks when an experienced ski maven buys a Liftopia ticket for $29 gets a credit. Meanwhile, the family spending big cash has to ski in the freezing rain torturing everyone, and when they go home, they say, this sucks, and we'll go to Disney next time.
As much as we loved the easy online deals, good riddance Liftopia. Ski areas now will finally work to have a way to sell online through their creativity and start to manage pricing with better deals to suit the ski industry's overall sustainability. The deals will be back; ski area operators and marketers are pretty good at what they do...unless maybe they are stuck in Broomfield.